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Science Innovation and Invention

Science, Innovation and Invention. Explore the science timeline to explore the context and intriguing connections to science and invention over the last thousand years.Drill down into recent articles to find out more about the people and ideas that shaped scientific, technological and engineering advances in Britain.

Science is an important part of our cultural heritage. As myths gave way to experiment, what we now call technological advance took place. Instead of waiting for things to happen or for fate to unfurl her flag, humans started to seek rational explanations for phenomena, the beginning of the scientific method was born.

We want to place the science in context, science emerges in waves across the historic periods. Sometimes one aspect of science explodes into consciousness and inventions come tumbling out with the science, sometimes groups of like minded people happen to be in the same place at the same time and this sharing of ideas, results in a hub of new innovations and ideas.

I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of others behind whom were centuries of workHenry Ford

History has shown us time and time again, that scientific discovery and invention go hand in hand and that they tend to come in bundles, moving society on in great bursts of scientific thinking. The timetable of science is important because knowing when scientific ideas emerged is important. Why? Because it influences the thinking of those who follow. Sometimes great ideas and great thinkers, turn up in the 'wrong' period of history. Leonardo da Vinci and his inventions, out stripped the ability of the technology to see them to fruition, e.g his design for a helicopter.

Small ideas, big impact

It is almost impossible to for see the impact and implications a scientific discovery, idea or invention will have. Nor is it possible from our perspective, to totally understand the impact it had in that period of time because we are always looking at it from a position of advancement. Things such as standardization of screw threads,

For example a simple device with big implications, the can opener.

Robert Yates Can Opener

In the 17th century a plethora of great brains emerged and great changes in science thinking took place. The new universities, the printed word, coffee houses were full of people who were exploring a new way of thinking about science. Figures such as Francis Bacon, Newton, Wren and Hooke rejected the Medieval approach to science, instead they were using direct observation, measurement and experimentation to expand their ideas.

The need to measure spurred the manufacture of fine tools and Britain was at the heart of precision tooling manufacture in the world.

The idea of sharing information led to the setting up of new institutions, the Royal Society was formed, the Greenwich Observatory, clubs such as the Lunar Society brought together great minds.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giantsIssac Newton

Flamsted Building Greenwich Royal Observatory

Exploration, science, innovation and invention

Exploration driven by the desire to settle and trade with new lands, demanded advances in astronomy, maths and time keeping. Being able to determine where you were on the globe led to competitions such as the Longitude Prize and so it went on. The great journeys of James Cook and the revolutionary thoughts of Charles Darwin, all pushing the frontiers of scientific knowledge.

Voyages of Exploration. Maritime Museum Greenwich

Medicine, science, innovation and invention

Anatomists began to apply the same principles of observation to medicine and the 'theatres' of anatomy were established. People struggled to understand how the human body worked and how disease was spread, the outbreaks of plague and cholera killing hundreds of thousands. Moves towards a modern approach to the spread of disease in the work of Lister and Florence Nightingale.

Age of Reason and EnlightenmentWhen Science and Religion Clashed at Oxford UniversityThe Remarkable Influence of Sir Joseph BanksJoseph Priestley Joseph Priestley radical dissenter and champion for the open and inquiring mind. Joseph Priestly was quite possibly one of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment. His direct and open inquiry into both religious beliefs and…

As Winter settles in and we find ourselves shivering in our centrally heated homes, wearing our snug ultra light super insulated ski wear and dash from home to the warmth of our cars and heated seats we would do well to spare a thought for our ancestors as they struggled to cope with some pretty…

The iron bridge near Coalbrook Dale is a humbling testament to the skill of ironworkers over two hundred years ago. The spectacular Severn gorge that carves its way through layers of limestone, coal and iron ore is a striking natural feature that gave rise to the most important industrialised landscape of the C18th. The River…

Matthew Boulton could be described as the father of the Industrial Revolution but his name is less well known than that of his partner James Watt. Matthew Boulton was born in Birmingham in 1728, the same year as Captain James Cook and into an age of enlightenment, reason and industrial revolution. His early years were…

The idea that diseases are seed like and transfer from person to person is postulated for the first time

Medical

1546

Tycho Brahe was born in Skane, then in Denmark, now in Sweden. His contributions to astronomy were enormous. He not only designed and built instruments, he also calibrated them and checked their accuracy periodically.

Astronomy People

1546

The word fossil is used for the first time

Geology

1550

Tobacco is grown in Spain for the first time

Botany

1550

John Napier is born. He was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer & astrologer

Mathematics

1551

Up to date astronomical tables are published using Copernicus's theory

Astronomy

1551

Theodolite is invented by Leonard Digges

Mathematics Cartography Geography

1554

Galileo is born

People

1557

Discovery of Platinum

Geology

1562

Gabriel Fallopio described the ovaries and uterus and the tubes connecting them.

Biology

1564

The horse drawn carriage is introduced to England

Transport

1565

The potato arrives in Spain

Botany

1566

First seed drill is used in Europe

Agriculture

1568

Mercator produces the projected map that still carries his name

Cartography

1570

The pinhole camera is invented

Photography

1571

Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his laws of planetary motion

Astronomy People

1578

Mathematician and innkeeper William Bourne designs an underwater rowing boat, covered in waterproof leather. The design is never built.

Maritime

1582

Pope Gregory reforms the calender it becomes the Gregorian calender

Time

1583

Cesalpino, in De Plantis, classified plants with seeds according to the number, position, and shape of the parts of their fruit

Botany

1583

Galileo discovered by experiment that the oscillations of a swinging pendulum took the same amount of time regardless of their amplitude.

Physics

1586

Stevinus performs the key experiment on gravity, dropping 2 differently weighted obects at the same time and noting that they strike the ground at the same time

Physics

1586

Walter Raleigh introduces the smoking of tobacco into England

1589

William Lee invents the knitting machine.

Invention Textiles

1590

Janssen invents the compound microscope, combined double convex lenses in a tube, producing the first telescope.

Invention

1590

Galileo refute Aristotelian physics

Physics

1591

Snowflakes are first described as being six sided or six pointed

Physics

1596

Andreas Cellarius was a Dutch-German cartographer, best known for his Harmonia Macrocosmica of 1660, a major star atlas

Cartography Astronomy People

1600

The first tretise based on experimental science is published. It relates static electricity and describes the Earth as a magnet. William Gilbert 'Concerning Magnetism'

Physics

1601

Tycho Brahe, astronomer dies

Astronomy People

1602

Tycho Brahe's 'Introduction to the New Astronomy' is published posthumously.

Astronomy

1603

Hugh Platt discovers coke

1604

Johannes Kepler describes how the eye focuses light

Physics

1604

Kepler observes and descrobes a supernova

Astronomy

1605

Francis Bacon, with the Advancement of Learning, began the publication of his philosophical works, in which he urged collaboration between the inductive and experimental methods of proof

People Methodology

1608

Hans Lippershey invents the telescope

Astronomy Physics

1609

Galileo built a telescope with which he discovered the mountains on the moon, that the Milky Way consisted of innumerable stars, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and sunspots.

Astronomy

1611

Scientific explanation of the rainbow

Physics

1614

John Napier explains the nature of logarithms and produces tables and rules for their use

Mathematics

1616

William Harvey lectures about the circulation of the blood to the Royal College of Physicians

Medical

1616

Galileo is warned by Cardinal Bellarmine that he should not defend the Copernican doctrine

Physics

1617

John Napier describes the device for multiplying that becomes known as Napier's rods

Mathematics

1620

Cornelius Drebbel builds a navigable submarine that can carry 24 people. Tested on the River Thames.

Maritime

1623

Binomial names used to describe first the genus and second the genus

Biology

1623

Blaise Pascal is born. He was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He invented a calculating machine

Mathematics

1625

Giovanni Domenico Cassini studied mathematics and astronomy at the Jesuits and became professor of astronomy at Bologna

Astronomy People

1627

The aurochs, the wild ancestor of domestic cattle, becomes extinct

Biology

1629

Giovanni Branca describes a steam turbine in which steam is directed at the vanes of a wheel

Inventions

1629

Pierre de Fermat discovered that the equation f(x,y)=0 represents a curve in thexy-plane. This is the fundamental principle of analytic geometry

Robert Hooke, natural philosopher, inventor, architect, chemist, mathematician, physicist, engineer. Robert Hooke is one of the most neglected natural philosophers of all time. The inventor of, amongst other things, the iris diaphragm in cameras

Physics People Chemistry

1639

William Gascoigne unvents the micrometer. It is placed in the focus of a telescope and used to measure the angular distance between stars

Invention Astronomy

1642

Pascal invents a calculating machine

Mathematics

1642

Isaac Newton is born in Woolsthorpe

People

1643

Torricelli makes the first barometer and in doing so the first vacuum known to science

Invention

1647

Denis Papin was born. He was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the forerunner of the steam engine, and of the pressure cooker.

Invention Mathematics People

1650

Invention of the air pump to create vacuums

Invention

1652

Thomas Bartholin discovered the lymphatic system and determined its relation to the circulatory system.

Biology

1656

Edmund Halley is born. After a famous meeting with Wren and Hooke, he visited Newton in Cambridge, and hearing about his work on gravitation, persuaded him to publish it. In 1703 he became professor of astronomy at Oxford, and in 1720 astronomer-royal. He computed the orbits of several comets, and deduced that those of 1456, 1531, 1607, and 1682 were periodic returns of the same body.

Astronomy People

1658

Robert Hooke invents the the balance spring for watches

Invention

1658

Jan Swammerdam is the first to see and describe red blood cells

Biology

1661

Robert Boyle, in the Sceptical Chymist, separated chemistry as corpuscles, from alchemy, as qualities, and gave the first precise definitions of a chemical element, a chemical reaction, chemical analysis, and made studies of acids and bases.

Chemistry

1662

Robert Boyle asserts that in an ideal gas under constant temperature volume and pressure vary inversely

Chemistry

1664

Isaac Newton discovers the binomial theorem

Mathematics

1665

Robert Hooke compares light waves to water waves

Physics

1665

Isaac Newton invents the first form of calculus. He also discovers that white light is a mixture of colours and develops his first law of universal gravitation

Physics

1665

Grimaldi, in 'Physico-Mathesis de lumine, coloribus, et eride', discovered that light going through a fine slit cannot be prevented from spreading on the farther side, a phenomena which he named 'diffraction' and postulated was caused by its wave-like motion.

Physics

1665

Robert Hooke, in Micrographia, named and gave the first description of cells

Biology

1665

Cassini, while attempting to map Jupiter, discovered the Great Red Spot

Astronomy

1666

First blood transfusion between two animals (dogs) is demonstrated

Biology

1666

Robert Boyle in 'The Origin of Forms and Quantities' suggests that everything is made up of atoms

Chemistry

1668

Isaac Newton invents the reflecting telescope

Physics

1668

John Wallis is the first to suggest the law of conservation of momentum

Physics

1670

Robert Boyle produced hydrogen by reacting metals with acid.

Physics

1676

Hookes Law. Hooke found that the stretch of a spring varies directly with it's tension

Physics

1678

Edmond Halley returned from St. Helena where he had added 341 stars to the southern hemisphere catalogue with the aid of a telescope.

Astronomy

1679

Denis Papin devised a vessel in which the boiling point of water is raised by an increase in steam pressure.

Physics

1679

Binary maths is introduced by Leibniz

Mathematics

1680

Minute hands on clocks are introduced

Time

1684

Wren, Hooke, Halley and Newton discuss the laws of movement of the planets. This leads Newton to begin the task of writing his ideas down in what will become 'Principia'

Physics

1686

Newton presents his first volume of 'Principia'

Physics

1691

Robert Boyle died

People

1691

First textbook on bones of the human body is published by Clopton Havers

Biology

1693

Edmund Halley discovered the formula for the focus of a lens

Physics

1693

John Harrison was born. He was a carpenter and clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer

Maritime Time People

1698

Thomas Savery patented an engine which produced a vacuum by condensing steam. The engine is used for pumping water out of mines, it is known as the 'Miners Friend'

Invention Engineering

1701

Jethro Tull invents the machine drill for planting seeds

Invention Agriculture

1703

Robert Hooke dies

People

1704

Isaac Newton's 'Optics' published

Physics

1705

Proof that sound needs air to travel. Francis Hauksbee shows that sound cannot travel in a vacuum

Physics

1705

Posthumous lecture by Hooke suggesting that earthquakes might change the face of the surface of the Earth

Geology

1707

Papin modifies Thomas Savery's steam pump

Inventions

1709

Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit constructed an alcohol thermometer

Physics

1709

Abraham Derby introduces the use of coke for iron smelting

Industrial Revolution

1710

Jacob Le Bon invents 3 colour printing

Invention Printing

1712

Flamsteed's publishes first volume of his star catalogue

Astronomy

1712

Thomas Newcomen builds the first practical steam engine to use both a piston and a cylinder

Invention Engineering

1714

British parliament set up the Board of Longitude. The two competing methods were astronomical calculation, which meant plotting the position of the moon against known stars, and by chronometer, which meant timing the position against a known land longitude.

Maritime

1718

Mary Wortley Montagu publicized the use of inoculation against smallpox in Turkey.

Medical

1712

Astronomer Cassini died

People

1713

Physicist Francis Hauksbee died

People

1713

Revised edition of Newton's 'Principia' is published, it contains the famous General Scholium